We surveyed 571 US hospitals about practices used to prevent Clostridium difficile infection (CDI). Most hospitals reported regularly using key CDI prevention practices, and perceived their strength of evidence as high. The largest discrepancy between regular use and perceived evidence strength occurred with antimicrobial stewardship programs.

Clostridium difficile strain BI/NAP1/027 is associated with increased C. difficile infection (CDI) rates and severity, and the efficacy of some CDI therapies may be strain dependent. Although cultured C. difficile isolates can be reliably subtyped by various methods, the long turnaround times, high cost, and limited availability of strain typing preclude their routine use. Nucleic acid amplific...

Symptomatic recurrence of Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) occurs in approximately 20% of patients and is challenging to treat. Identifying those at high risk could allow targeted initial management and improve outcomes. Adult toxin enzyme immunoassay-positive CDI cases in a population of approximately 600,000 persons from September 2006 through December 2010 were combined with epidemiolog...

BACKGROUND Population attributable risk percent (PAR%) is an epidemiological tool that provides an estimate of the percent reduction in total disease burden if that disease could be entirely eliminated among a subpopulation. As such, PAR% is used to efficiently target prevention interventions. Due to significant limitations in current Clostridium difficile Infection (CDI) prevention practices a...

Background. Clostridium difficile is the leading cause of infectious diarrhea among hospitalized patients and is a major concern for patients undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). Risk factors and the natural history of C. difficile infection (CDI) are poorly understood in this population. Methods. We performed a retrospective nested case-control study to describe the epide...

Figure 1: Model of CDI transmission across three major subpopulations Objectives: To estimate the cost-effectiveness of Fecal Microbiota Transplant (FMT) for Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) as compared to current practice comprising of antibiotic treatments. Methods: We developed a decision analytic model to compare strategies for the management of CDI, by age, gender, and three major sub...

BACKGROUND Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) was the most common nosocomial infection in the U.S. in 2010. Most cases of CDI respond to a standard course of antibiotics, but recurrent C. difficile infections (RCDI) are increasingly common. Given the lack of randomized clinical trials, it is important to understand how infectious disease physicians are managing RCDI to inform future clinical...

AIM To evaluate factors associated with Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) and outcomes of CDI in the myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) and acute myeloid leukemia (AML) population. METHODS After IRB approval, all MDS/AML patients hospitalized at the University of Maryland Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center between August 2011 and December 2013 were identified. Medical charts were reviewed...

BACKGROUND Perioperative antibacterial prophylaxis (PAP) is an important component of surgical site infection prevention but may be associated with adverse effects, such as Clostridium difficile infection (CDI). Since the emergence of a hypervirulent strain of C. difficile, the risk of development of CDI after PAP has not been evaluated. The purpose of this study was to determine the risk of PA...

OBJECTIVE Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) is a major cause of morbidity and biomarkers that predict severity of illness are needed. Procalcitonin (PCT), a serum biomarker with specificity for bacterial infections, has been little studied in CDI. We hypothesized that PCT associated with CDI severity. DESIGN Serum PCT levels were measured for 69 cases of CDI. Chart review was performed to...